When he was 13, the drug dealers paid him $50 an hour to stand outside the door of the restaurant while they did their work. It was lucrative, because sometimes he was outside for only a couple of hours, and at 14, Cody Deering could think of spending the money on lots of things.
His job was simple: to tell the dealers inside of an impending bust and get away. It was easy for him. He knew which patrons were coming in were legitimate. He also could “sense the air,” he called it. Just a feeling in his gut that something was going to happen. In all the times that he notified them of a bust, the dealers were out the back door ten minutes before the bust happened.
They called him “Radar” and he liked the name so much that it stuck. They called him that in school, even his parents started calling him that. His parents knew he had a knack for knowing when things would happen. When he was younger, it was a sense of getting out of the way.
At 15, he stood outside of Remy’s, just like he did every afternoon after school. He didn’t do the drugs that the dealers offered to him, just accepted the money. He had asked for, and got, a raise of $75 an hour, minimum of two hours. He was just coming out of Remy’s with a Coke in his hand when a Chinese guy barged in, flashing a badge and a gun at his hip. “You! Freeze!”
Radar did, and stared, blinking at the cop who led a seemingly whole battalion of cops into the restaurant and busted the dealers. The cop turned to Radar and smiled at him, then turned him around to cuff him. “How…?”
He chuckled and leaned in whispering, “Ancient Chinese secret.”
Radar was put through the system and his parents were pissed. With a plea bargain arrangement, they were able to get him community service, which he did by working at a soup kitchen in town. He got to know the patrons and knew who was trying to screw the system and who was actually hard-up. He listened to their sins like a confessor, and went home thinking of wanting to help them.
In the soup kitchen one afternoon, the Chinese cop came in. Radar didn’t even register that the man had come in until he was standing right in front of him. “How you doin’, kid?”
“Okay,” he said. He was getting no feeling whatsoever from this guy.
“How old are you now?”
“I’ll be sixteen next month.”
“Want to do any work? Legitimate work and get paid for it?”
Nothing would give him $75 an hour, he thought. He’d be lucky getting $9 an hour. Radar shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Nothing’s going to give you what you had,” said the Chinese cop. “But I’ll get you a dollar more than what you’re expecting.”
Radar stared open-mouthed at him. “You – you–”
“I have a knack, too.” He smiled. “I can show it to you, and then maybe, we can work together, eh?”
When he finished his community service, he left the employ of the soup kitchen and went to work with Lieutenant Paul Song. Paul came over for dinner one night and he told his parents what his plans were for Cody. “I’ll teach him how to block telepaths, and how to work with others. How to use his abilities best.”
What they didn’t know is that Paul Song is the hero Mandarin.
Radar found this out when Song’s police partner slipped the information in his mind before Song could shut it out. Radar was learning his “poker face”, a face kept devoid of emotion no matter what he sensed or heard in his mind. After his partner left the dojo that Song rented for their work together, Radar came out and asked him.
Song admitted it, and let down a small bit of his mental guard. “I won’t bring you out with me. You’re not my sidekick.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re a telepath, and I know how it goes.”
Radar didn’t think he was a telepath. However, in a broad sense of the term, he was.
Then, just this Christmas, Song disappeared. The last time Mandarin was seen was at the eastern side of Millenium City, doing some poking around at the park near PSI. Radar knew he wasn’t strong enough to go after PSI.
At least, not alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Gooooooood morning, answering for the awesome teen supergroup Teen Guardians; where’s the cat that needs saving out of a tree?”
“Uh, hello?”
“Hello?”
“I’m looking for Teen Guardians.”
“You got it. Need help?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Are you taking people? Like, hiring them?”
“We don’t pay. The city might, if you’re registered.” Pause. “Why? Are you interested in joining up?”
“I need help.”
“It’s either one or the other, guy – either you need help or you want to join up.”
“I can’t afford to pay you.”
“Okay, then it’s both. Want to meet and talk?”
“Um, okay.”
“Don’t sound so excited. How about we meet at…The Drowning Duck.”
“I can’t go in there.”
“I’m not going to Chuck E Cheese. And if that’s the only place you can go, then you’re too young for this group.”
“How about O’Malley’s? The original one.”
“Which one’s the original one?”
“The one by itself in the middle of a square.”
“Okay, I know where that is. See you there in an hour?”
“See you there.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Radar should have told the man on the phone what he looked like. “The kid with green hair,” he should have said. He was eating a pizza – yes, at an “Irish” pub – when he got the feeling that someone was coming his way. He set down the pizza and waited.
Sure enough, a blond man came in, looking around the semi-crowded room. He caught Radar’s eye, and nodded, smiling, and went over to him, holding his hand out for a shake. “You must be the one who called.”
“Yeah,” Radar shook his hand. It was a strong, firm grip, and the man smelled of upturned earth. His grey eyes studied him closely.
“I’m Grimaulkin – everyone calls me Grim. Or Mike. Or Mr. I answer to anything.”
“I’m Radar.”
“Ah. So what do you do?”
“I sense future states based on people’s actions and thoughts,” he said, quoting from the label that Song gave him. He looked down. “At least that’s what he said.”
“Who said?”
“My teacher.”
“Oh. You’re a telepath.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. We have another telepath on the team, but I never say no to more. Tell me about yourself.”
Radar told him everything.